AMONG THE CLOUDS IN IRELAND

From Irish Ideas by William O'Brien, 1893

Page 37

AMONG THE CLOUDS IN IRELAND

« previous page | book contents | start of this chapter | next page »

now possible for him to improve his patch, and to have a cosy cabin, and even to put shoes on his daughter's feet, without the terror of a rise of rent or an eviction notice. When I recall the people's broken and despairful looks in 1879, and contrast them with their carriage to-day, I doubt whether even the most thoughtful of us has yet realised with sufficient thankfulness the fact that in the interval there has passed over the face of Ireland a revolution, which has secured for the Irish peasantry all that, and more than, the French Revolution secured for the peasantry of France, and that at less cost of bloodshed in the whole course of the struggle than the French had to pay in any one day of their long years of bloody travail. A woeful deal, indeed, remains to be done; but the most joyous feature in the Irish peasant's horoscope is the confidence that we are only in the beginning of the better days. … next page »

« previous page | book contents | start of this chapter | next page »